Keystone backers: Bill over pipeline

Senior Democrats backing the Keystone XL pipeline and some of its labor allies really want to see the pipeline built, but they appear to want a surface transportation bill more.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee ranking member Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), who are avowed supporters of the pipeline, have signaled that they aren’t interested in seeing Keystone language included if its means the death of a multiyear transportation bill.

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Keystone will not weigh much on conference proceedings, “because I think this conference should move ahead, pro- or anti-Keystone,” Rahall told POLITICO. “It should not be the stumbling block that stops this conference from acting, because we have to act so quickly.”

And, he said, most fellow transportation conferees feel the same way.

“My discussions, without naming names, is that nobody wants this to stop the transportation conference report from going forward as quickly as possible — pro or con,” Rahall said.

Baucus has also hinted several times that he isn’t interested in killing the transportation bill over Keystone.

“Nothing’s more important than jobs,” Baucus said last month when reporters asked him whether Keystone belongs in the final transportation conference bill. “There’s all kinds of ways to get jobs. And the highway bill is critical. Passage is critical. And I think the Keystone pipeline also would help create more jobs. But frankly, I’m going to make sure we get a net jobs increase.”

It’s a sentiment that extends to even some of the most fervent union backers of the pipeline.

“Of course, we want to see Keystone be built,” Laborers’ International Union of North America spokeswoman Jaclyn Houser said. “But we also want to pass a highway bill, and Keystone should not be a roadblock or impediment.”

“We wouldn’t want to jeopardize either measure politically,” she added.